JFK 50 years later: When Kennedy was assassinated ...

Sunday

Nov 17, 2013 at 5:00 AM

RRSTAR.COM

“I was making cookies. My 3-month-old daughter was watching me. She was strapped into an infant seat, which was on the table where I was working on the cookies. We only had one TV, which was in the living room. It was broadcasting my favorite soap opera, and all I was doing was listening to the words. That’s when they interrupted the program to make the announcement of the shooting. I grabbed my daughter and raced into the living room to watch the terrible news unfold. I don’t remember when or if I finished the cookie-making project. I remember wanting to share the news with someone besides my 3-month-old child.”

— Clara Hellemann, Marengo

“I was sitting in a study hall at Orangeville High School. I remember the principal, Mr. Al Schilling, making an announcement of the breaking news over the school’s intercom system. The decision was to present our class play that night as scheduled. The day of his funeral, we were allowed to watch the television coverage at various locations. Several girls in my class watched it at the home of a classmate as her mother was present in the home and it was near the school.”

— Bonnie Scheider, Orangeville

“My memories of my elementary education at Whitehead School in Rockford, have blended together over the years, but Nov. 22, 1963, will always stand out in my mind.

“It was fourth grade in Mrs. Miller’s class and I was 9 years old. Mrs. Miller was a stern teacher and never left her rambunctious fourth-graders alone for even a minute; so it was odd that she left the room that day.

“The teacher was gone for what seemed like a long time. While she was out of the room, (we) noticed the janitor outside at the flagpole, lowering the flag to half staff.

“We had never seen a flag at half (staff) and had no idea what it meant.

“When the teacher came back in, she had tears in her eyes and told us school was dismissing early. We were told to go home as quickly as possible and our parents would explain what happened.

“My mom was out shopping but my dad was in the basement on his ham radio. He was a firefighter, and it was his day off.

“I remember being unsure whether I really wanted to know the truth so I slowly walked down the basement stairs to where I could crouch down and see him down there on his radio.

He looked up at me and said: ‘Someone killed our president.’ ”

— Pam Labunksi, Rockford

“I was in the Piggly Wiggly in Freeport shopping for groceries with my fourth child, who was 3 months old at that time. I heard it come over the intercom. Shock came over me and everyone around me. It was a very sad day for all of us. He will never be forgotten.”

— Mary Lou Koelling, Freeport

“My third son, Joe, was 3 weeks old. I was in the living room ironing and watching ‘As The World Turns.’ Needless to say, I was shocked and heartbroken. We voted for him but have voted Republican ever since.”

— Mary Hartenberger, Rockford

“I was in the (newspaper’s) newsroom when I saw the red letters being printed from the typewriter (in the wire room). It said something about ‘Kennedy shot’ in red letters. Nick Powers (the wire editor) and I said something about Kennedy being shot and we were looking at each other and he looked at me and said ‘what?’ We both made a beeline into the wire room and saw ‘Kennedy shot,’ ‘Dallas,’ and then Nick opened the door into the newsroom and yelled ‘Kennedy’s been shot.’ That was all we knew at that point.

“Then the two editors came in and started checking the story, and then they called the publisher at the time to come down to the newsroom.

“In the meantime, the other wire machines started having a similar story. The publisher came down and checked what was going on.

“He said ‘nobody, absolutely nobody goes home.’ We went through the entire plan that no one was to go home, everybody stayed. He also ordered food for the whole building for the night.

“From that point, the editors started assigning and guessing where to send people to talk.

I was assigned to downtown to State and Wyman streets with a reporter. It was a street interview. We talked to a lot of people. It went off and on for a couple of days.

“We were running back and forth into the dark room. This was before we had radios and telephones. You would yell across the newsroom to people.

“The day started out basically a normal day for me. All of sudden, it changed. I thought at the time with what we had to work with, we had professional people and everyone did what was necessary.

“I helped record the history of Rockford and what was happening in this country, which affected the world. We made a permanent record so people could see and refer back to it.”

— Don Holt, Register Star photographer from Jan. 1953 to June 1993

“I was a sophomore at Dakota High School. I was in English class, my first class after lunch. My desk was along the windows, and I remember I was standing up next to those windows for some reason (probably goofing off) when the announcement came across the school intercom that Kennedy had been shot. But the interesting part about this memory is, I remember we had a substitute teacher that day, and I even remember her name, Mrs. Terhark. But for the life of me I cannot remember my regular teacher’s name I had for that class for the entire rest of that year.”

— Robert Spelman, Rockford

“I was a freshman at a small Catholic college. I had just finished lunch and heard the news as I walked past the TV lounge. Classes were canceled for the rest of the day and we were sent to the chapel to pray. I was devastated. I had been a campaign worker for his election.”

— Colleen Gift, Freeport

“I was at work on that dreadful November day. My place of employment was Marquis Who’s Who in America Inc. in Chicago at Ohio and St. Clair streets.

“We were all in shock after hearing the news. I took the bus home down Michigan Avenue to Lake Shore Drive. No one on the bus was talking. Getting off at Bryn Mawr Avenue and Sheridan Road, I preceded to walk the three blocks to my home.

“It was like a ghost town, at 5:30 p.m. The few people I saw were walking with their heads down. Bryn Mawr was a busy street with many shops.

“The next day, my mother and I took the train to Tennessee to visit my grandmother for Thanksgiving. The college kids going home for the holiday were the only ones talking. It was a somber Thanksgiving, we were all glued to the TV.”

— Joyce A. Fancher, South Beloit

“I was working for McDonnell Aircraft Corp. (now Boeing) in St. Louis as a flight-test engineer in the Gemini spacecraft program. Early in the afternoon, the voice of our company president, Mr. McDonnell, came over the PA system. ‘Our Pete (JFK) is dead.’ He offered few details because the complete story was not known at the time. Almost as one, anyone near a telephone called home to see if there were additional details. There were none! Needless to say, the announcement made for a very gloomy atmosphere for the balance of the workweek.”

— Maurice Hartenberger, Rockford

“In 1963, I was stationed in Bainbridge, Md., attending radio school (U.S. Navy). After class at the bowling alley, I’d go for a sandwich, and that’s where I got the sad news of my life. He was and still is my favorite president.

“I had a weekend pass, and a buddy of mine had a car, so four of us decided to go to Washington to pay our respects.

“We arrived early that morning, so we didn’t go to the rotunda. There was a strange feeling as you walked among the thousands of sad people. Nobody was talking, but everybody seemed to be carrying a portable radio. They were all tuned to the same station, so it was easy to keep up with what and when things were to happen. With all of the people lining the sidewalks, it was hard to view. I took a bunch of pictures.

“We followed them to the cemetery, where we were met by a 400-pound MP. He said we couldn’t go in, so we walked until we found a hole in the fence to get in.

“We got close enough where we could see the family. When they gave the 21-gun salute, you could almost feel the ground shake. And when they flew over with the missing-man formation, there couldn’t have been a dry eye anywhere. A really sad day in history.”

— Kenneth Bauscher Jr., Freeport

“I was a student at Northland College in Ashland, Wis. I had cut a class that morning — ironically, it was American history — and was in the multipurpose room at the men’s dorm when it was announced over television that the president had been shot. I was alone. Stunned and not knowing what to do, I went to my history class and told everyone what had just happened. There was dead silence in the room for quite a while.

“As an aside, the professor didn’t count my absence that morning. He said something to the effect that what I had missed in class was far less memorable than what I had just witnessed.”

— Bob Balgemann, Machesney Park

“I was an X-ray tech student at Rockford Memorial Hospital. My class was walking down a hospital corridor with our teacher, Dr. Bertil Roseberg, when the announcement came over the PA system. We just stood there absolutely stunned, staring at each other.”

— Carrole Banks, Rockford

“My husband and I were standing on the bleachers at the Chicago International Livestock Show. He was the manager of a large quarterhorse and Hereford farm in Waukesha, Wis.

“We had a couple of horses that were being shown, and one of the farm’s horses was up for a top prize. I remember that I stood up to clap for our win when everything went silent because of the announcement that broke in telling of the assassination of JFK.

“To this day I can see myself trying to clap for our horse but couldn’t. It was like time stood still.”

— Nancy Dinelli-Prill, Winnebago

“I was stationed at Moron Air Force Base in Seville, Spain. Armed Forces Radio delivered the news, and the base when on full alert. Everyone was restricted to base for several days.

“The refueling sorties increased to over 50 a day. These aircraft kept the heavy bombers in the air 24/7. In those days, Russia got the blame for everything, and most of us felt they were responsible. We were young and felt bulletproof.

“Most of us were ready to attack Russia if needed.

“It was a sad day for everyone. President Kennedy was highly thought of by all branches of the military. I had seen the president while in Germany and was deeply saddened. The world was not as violent as it is today, and it was very hard to believe this happened to such a wonderful man. I think back to those sad days often.”

— Thomas R. Nimmo, Rockford

“I was working at the old Sears store in downtown Freeport, across from the post office. (It was torn down years ago and has been a parking lot ever since.) Our warehouse manager, Max Tilburg, came into the office and told us it had just come over the radio. We passed the word through the store. It was a very sad moment, since none of us in the office had ever experienced anything like that.”

— Martha Carson, Freeport

“I was feeding my 5-month-old daughter and watching ‘As the World Turns’ on TV. I had put my sons (3½ years and 23 months) down for their naps. All of a sudden, they broke in and announced that the president had been shot. I immediately called my mother because I knew she did not have the TV on. Life just seemed to stop, and I was fixated on listening to Walter Cronkite. My husband was at work and there was no way to call him, but he was told that the news was shared throughout the factory.

“From that time on, the whole weekend was a nightmare, and I recall it all. Rockford Dry Goods in Loves Park was having a big sale on kitchen goods and I wanted a 30-cup coffee maker, so I left the house on Saturday morning to get it. I hurried back home to continue watching the news.

“I still have the coffee maker, and it still works.”

— Cathy Adams, Rockford

“I was in Dixon with my husband, Harold, and our 4-year-old son, Bill. While Harold was at an appointment, I went to the dime store with our son to get him a snack.

“While there, I heard the clerks talking about the president being shot. At that time no one knew whether the president was alive or dead. When my husband met me after his appointment, we went directly to the car and listened to the radio and found out that he had been killed.”

— Uldine Baker, Mount Morris

“I was sitting in my sixth-grade language arts classroom at DeGolyer Elementary School in Dallas. My parents had not voted for him, so (they) did not wish to take my sisters and me out of school for the downtown parade.

“However, one of my classmates was there and came blurting into our room around lunchtime, telling us the president had been shot. I remember my teacher saying, ‘So help me, Patrick, if you’re lying.’ He told us he wasn’t, so Miss Gilmore turned on her radio and we listened to the developments. We were told later by my PE teacher that afternoon that he had died. I wasn’t initially sad, thinking my parents would be happy since they hadn’t voted for him.

“Later in the day, my 11-year-old emotions overcame me, and I realized what a tragedy this was for the entire country, political parties excluded. As my family sat riveted to our small black-and-white television set all weekend and through the funeral, I came to realize the truth of the horrible event. As some of our friends and relatives visited us in the months to follow, all the sightseeing they wanted to do was the JFK presidential route, beginning at Love Field, going past the Texas School Book Depository, ending up at Parkland Hospital. I was glad to move away two years later to New York, where we had the biggest blackout up until that date, in 1965!”

— Janet Rauch, Rockford

“I was at work at a service business. The office was open, no private offices except for the owner. We were all very upset and shocked. The owner came out of his office and said, “Someone should have shot the S.O.B. sooner.

“He was a very strong presence. We were all afraid to say how terrible that remark was. I would not be afraid to say something now that I’m older and wiser and not afraid to say what I think. I’ll never forget that remark. We all respected the owner by calling him Mr., never by his first name, yet he disrespected us by saying what he did. I wonder if he ever regretted it.”

— Joanne Peterson, Rockford

“I was just a 9-year-old kid sitting in my fourth-grade class at Blackhawk School in Freeport. It started out like any other day, until our teacher walked into the classroom sobbing and crying. You could hear a pin drop, as most of us had never witnessed a teacher cry before. Then she made the announcement that our president had been shot and seriously wounded.

“Our classroom was at the south end of the school building. Coincidentally, one of our classmates lived right next door to the school nearest our classroom. I remember all of us lining up, walking out and filing into her house to watch the newscast on TV. Not the usual fun-loving type of field trip we had grown accustomed to, for sure.

“We were all shocked and confused by it all. Up to that point, watching episodes of ‘Bonanza’ on my grandparents’ color TV every Sunday night was about the most adult violence I had ever seen, even if it was just acting. This real event permanently stuck in the minds of adults and children.”

— Derrick Miller, Freeport

“I was in typing class at the old DeKalb High School. I was a senior, and I was as shocked as everyone else, because it was the first time in our memory that such a terroristic act of violence had occurred to such a high official. Everyone was invited to pray for the president’s family and for the nation. It was a moment locked in my memory forever.”

— Rev. Richard Meier, Rockford

“I was a ninth-grader on a class tour of the Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago. Several teletype machines were on display. It was around noon when I noticed these machines spewing reams of yellow paper to the floor. Then and there, my fellow students and I read that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, taken to the hospital and subsequently died.

“All of us were stunned and pale. Then an announcement came over the museum’s PA system stating the museum was closing immediately, with no reason given. But we knew why. We boarded our bus and everyone sat in silence as we made our way back to school. We were then dismissed for the day to join our families.”

— Steve Tamborello, Rockford

“I worked in the Women’s & Children’s division of the Pacific Garden Mission in downtown Chicago. I had to go to family court with one of the children that was abandoned at the mission.

“I can well remember when the news was told in family court that President Kennedy had been killed. You could have dropped a pin there. It was so quiet.

“Later that day, my supervisor took me out to a restaurant and bar in downtown Chicago. I will never forget the music that they played. It was ‘God be with you till we meet again!’ ”

— Joan Keener, Rockford

“I was a senior at Memorial High School in Houston. I was listening to the radio, working on a newsletter on Silas Marner for an English teacher. When the news flash came on, I immediately called the front office and they put the radio on the speakers in each room. We all listened together. There wasn’t a sound in that school.

“Some of my classmates had seen the Kennedys in Houston the night before. We were stunned. We couldn’t believe it, some crying softly. It affected us all and it affected the world. Everything changed that day. Our homecoming game and dance were canceled for that night and we all went home. I stayed at home, glued to the black-and-white TV with my family. Most of my friends did the same. A horrible day and a horrible weekend.”

— Ginger G. Westin, Rockford

“I was sitting at a sewing machine in my eighth-grade sewing class at Washington Junior High School in Rockford. I remember the first announcement was made over the intercom telling us that he had been shot; soon followed a second announcement that he had died. As a 13-year-old girl in 1963, I really didn’t understand the magnitude of what had happened.”

— Carol Spires, Roscoe

“I was in fourth grade at West View School in Rockford. I was standing right next to my teacher’s desk for something when the announcement came over the loudspeaker about the president being shot. Our room became oh-so-quiet and my teacher had me go sit back at my desk. The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur.”

— Kathy Ayling, Rockford

“I was on a bus to serve in the U.S. Army. The driver pulled over and gave us the tragic news. When I arrived for duty, there was a memorial for three days to honor the president. Everything was put on hold.”

— Tom Castree, Rockford

“I was in first grade at Klockner Elementary School in Mercerville, N.J., a suburb of the capital, Trenton. My class returned to the classroom from our afternoon outdoor recess. Our teacher, Mrs. Carter, was crying when she came into the classroom. She announced that President Kennedy had been shot. A short time later, school was dismissed for the day.

“When I arrived home, my parents were sitting at the kitchen table. They were stunned. When I saw that, I became frightened; I was 6 years old. Dad was in the Korean War and he thought this was going to start World War III. We were glued to the television, a black-and-white console, all evening, hoping to catch a snippet of news about Kennedy. During the next few days, everything was serious.”

— Dom Castaldo, Mount Morris

“I was flying as the radio operator on a Navy patrol bomber as part of a fleet exercise in anti-submarine warfare. We were about 300 miles southwest of Hawaii when I received an emergency message that was broadcast to all the aircraft in our squadron in a code that I did not have the decryption device to decode.

“I gave it to the pilot, who decoded it, and he told the crew that the president had been shot and that we were to cease our operation and return to our base in Hawaii for further instructions. I found a station from Samoa, I think, because I could not pick up any Honolulu stations. I put it on the plane intercom so the whole crew could listen to the developing news. The rest of the flight was very somber.

“En route to Hawaii, we heard that the president had died. We got a couple more of the secret messages from fleet that the pilot did not share with us. He did say that, as soon as we landed, we were to refuel and rearm the plane with live ordnance and then taxi to a holding area for further instructions. By that point, all American armed forces worldwide were on full alert because the Pentagon probably didn’t know if the assassination was the tip of the iceberg and they erred on the side of preparedness.

“It took several days before everything calmed down and the edginess abated.”

— Dennis Carter, Rockford

“I was standing with my recruit command company, No. 521, at the U.S. Naval Training Center-Great Lakes. I was the company recruit petty officer chief and was standing on the curb of the street at Camp Moffitt with my company on the sidewalk.

“We were waiting to go in for haircuts. We were three weeks into our training when the company commander came out to me to tell me that Kennedy had been assassinated. Understand that this was the first news from the ‘outside’ we had heard in three weeks. Of course, when we got back to the barracks, there was much concern as we did not know if the country was at war or where we might be headed in a few hours. We saw our first newspapers that weekend in over three weeks.

“Needless to say, it is a memory etched in my mind.”

— Clare F. Merwin, Rockford

“I was a student nurse at Saint Anthony Hospital in Rockford. I was working on the cardiac unit and we were summoned to the nurses station. After being informed of the situation, were instructed to turn the TVs off in the patients’ room, comfort patients who had heard the news and inform our instructors of any distress that the patients were having. At the end of our clinical session, all the students went to the hospital chapel and prayed in silence.”

— Marsha Hepfer, Oregon

“I was in Mr. Wilson’s seventh-grade class at Holcomb Grade School. I remember it was a very dreary, rainy day. We had a moment of silence and school let out early. Mom had the TV on when we got home and we were getting new carpeting for the living room. It was the day before my birthday, and I remember it like it was yesterday.”

— Vicki Bond, Rockford

“I was leaving the University of Kansas School of Journalism for lunch. Halfway to the dormitory, I turned around, going back to hear the numerous bell alerts and read bulletins about the shooting on our AP wire. I never got to lunch.

“We at the student University Daily Kansan published that afternoon a special EXTRA broadsheet. The paper’s regular deadline was at noon, so all we had was a bulletin insert about the shooting. Students overflowed TV lounges everywhere all day,often skipping classes, to see news about the assassination. Most students couldn’t believe it had happened. We were still glued to the TV sets that evening.

“Coverage of this event revealed to the world the impact of television. In the 1990s, I used copies of the AP reports to illustrate to my journalism students at Western Illinois University how the nation learned about JFK’s assassination.”

— Don E. Black, Loves Park

“I was in the fourth grade in Baileyville Grade School. I had just turned 9, so I really didn’t understand it. I remember being off the day of the funeral and watching it on TV. Also remember Jack Ruby shooting Oswald in the jail on live TV. I was at my grandmother’s north of Cedarville for Thanksgiving and watching that.

“The country seemed to go downhill after that, Vietnam and civil rights movement and then Johnson not seeking re-election in ’68.”

— David Wubbena, Baileyville

“I was 13 years old and living in an old farmhouse in County Clare, Ireland.

“I recall sitting at the dining table of the kitchen/living room doing my homework. My younger brother, Tony, was similarly engaged. We attended St. John’s National School in the nearby village of Ballyvaughan. Our baby sister, Bernadette, was tucked up in bed. Our father, Thomas Francis, was seated in his favorite armchair, reading a copy of National Geographic. His boots had been removed and his stocking feet were placed precariously close to the roaring peat fire. Our mother, Mary Francis (nee Howley), was off for the evening visiting a neighbor. She was not expected to return for several hours, as there was much to discuss.

“Suddenly the front door burst open and my mother stepped inside in a distraught state. She paused briefly before announcing in a trembling voice, ‘Kennedy was shot.’

“If she had announced the death of a relative or neighbor, it would not have cast such pallor of shock over the household. My father, of course, wanted more details. Was it in Dallas? Did they know who did it? Was he dead?

“Hadn’t America’s first Irish-Catholic president visited Ireland a short few weeks earlier?

“Soon, almost every house in our neighborhood added a new framed picture to those of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Pope John XXIII beside the perpetually lit Sacred Heart lamp: John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the fourth assassinated American president.”

— P.J. Francis, Durand

“I was in Fort Myers, Fla., with my wife, Carolyn, just after lunch at a restaurant. We were on our way home to Toledo, Ohio. It was the last part of our two-week honeymoon trip. This was the first time we had turned on the car radio during our entire trip. Our trip started in Lauderdale By The Sea, Fla., and ended up on a cruise to the Bahamas from Miami.

“On the morning of Nov. 22, we disembarked from the ship and drove the Tamiami Trail to Fort Myers. All the way home from Florida, we were changing stations to get further news about the assassination. We arrived home Sunday stunned and wondering about the future.

— Chuck Poffenbaugh, Rockford

“I was at the home of Miss Thorborg Swenson. My sister phoned me there to tell me the president had been shot around 1 p.m. When Miss Swenson came home later, she told me that he had died.

“Soon after, I arrived home, and my 8-year-old daughter, Beckie, came home from R.K. Welsh school. We were both crying from shock!”

— Ina Chapman, Rockford

“When President Kennedy was assassinated, I was a junior at Auburn High School in an electronics class.

“The instructor was called into the hall, and upon returning, the class was dismissed, and we were told to report to our respective homerooms.

“When I arrived at homeroom 129, Mrs. Schroeder my homeroom teacher, was crying, and announced that President Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas. The mood was very somber, with muffled conversations with classmates Mary Burton, Larry Mills and Ken Hornbeck who sat near.

“Nothing like this had happened previously in our lives, and was followed by the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy and the Vietnam War which changed us and America.

“I went home and watched the news on black and white TV, my father was watching live when Lee Harvey Oswald was shot and killed by Jack Ruby.”

— Ernest L. Burge, Roscoe

“I was in second grade in a Chicago area parochial school, when my class learned that President Kennedy had been shot. In those days, classrooms were quite formal. Everyone sat very still at their desks with their hands folded neatly on top, ready to pay attention to the teacher. We were taught to stand and politely greet any visitors to our classroom. And if we heard a fire truck or ambulance drive by the school, we were taught to immediately get out of our desks and kneel to pray for whoever was in crisis.

“I distinctly remember that fateful day when another adult with a transistor radio came to the door of our classroom and spoke in a hushed whisper to our teacher, who then informed us that President Kennedy had been shot. We were told to immediately kneel down and pray for him and his family. When our teacher stepped back out of the room and we were supposed to be praying, a couple of the little boys in the class thought it was a fun idea to pretend like they were shooting each other and dropping down dead. I was positively scandalized that they would be so callous!

“Looking back, I recall that I had just turned seven years old a few days prior to this event. I guess I can excuse the behavior of those little boys, because most of us students were probably much too young to understand the complete significance of the entire situation.”

— Sharon Shirk, Rockford

“I was a sophomore at Marmion Military Academy, a Catholic, all boys high school in Aurora. We were in an afternoon Latin class when our officer of the day came in and handed a note to Father David. He read the note and asked us to stand and follow him. He took us to the school chapel where he told us that President Kennedy had been shot. Father David led us in prayer for the remainder of his class time.

“Later we learned the President had died. I remember watching our flag being lowered and school being cancelled for the rest of the week.”